Consistency in communication is key. Learn how to create email templates, automations and get your communications syncing with Engager - let’s help you save time and maintain your brand's voice.

Custom Email Templates 

Making your client communications have your brand and tone of voice can play a big part in your success. Also, when migrating to a new platform, you want the service to your client to be seamless, so let’s keep the look and feel of your practice throughout Engager. 

In this section, we’re going to build out your template emails that you use in your day to day - we’ve already populated your account with some to get you up and running, but you’ll want to add to this list as you go. 

Start with your top 10 most-used templates in your firm. 

To do this:

1. Navigate to 'Settings'
2. On the left menu, scroll down to the 'Communication' section and then select 'Message Templates'
3. Select 'New Template'
4. Enter a name for your new template:
   
5. You can then draft your email subject and content:
   
6. You can also use placeholders which will allow you to draft a single email which will be automatically personalised to each individual recipient:
   
7. Each custom field you create will also create a placeholder field, unlocking the potential for you to build incredibly powerful automated emails and workflows.

 

Take Action with your new templates

Ok that’s your basics set up and running, you can fire these to clients ad-hoc, en masse or you can start to bring them into your workflows and automated emails - this is where it gets VERY cool and Engager will start to look after your clients behind the scenes - read on!

Let’s start with triggering the template from a status change, within a Phase

So at this stage, you should have been through these articles one by one, and created your Services as to how you want this to happen? If you haven’t - naughty, head back to Step 3 

Head to Settings - Services - Actions

Within the Phase, you can see a section that states ‘template for an email to send on completing the phase’

 

 

 

From here, your newly created custom template will be visible within the dropdown - fab!

Tips for when to use this

You could have it so Engager has been doing the arduous task of chasing your client for bank statements / WIP etc using the automation service (which we’ll go through below) and then once you or a staff member has COMPLETED the Phase, Engager will email the client your template. 

So in the example below, you can have it so Engager will send a template thanking the client for records, inform the client that the accounts are now due to be worked on, expect them in 4-6 weeks etc.

Once the Preparation phase is Completed, this can then inform the client that the accounts are now in REVIEW with you Senior Tax Specialist, eta could be 5 working days. 

Let Engager be your client touch-point master by using Phases, Workflows and Automations

 

 

 

We’ll even remind you that we’ll send an email to the client after completing that phase - if you don’t need to send it, don’t - you are in total control of all the Engager behaviours 

 

Automations - Setting up Automated Emails

Getting Started with Automations

 

How many hours a week do you think you spend manually sending emails to clients? Make this a thing of the past with our Global Auto Reminders

 

Head over to your Settings - Services - select relevant Service -  Global Auto Reminders - Set Up

 

 

 

When you select ‘New’ you will be available to start programming your automations. 

Top Tip - Whilst you’re getting used to us, we’d recommend putting the automated emails into a queue for you to review when ready, before being sent out to your clients. So when you’re onboarding and importing your client list, this is a great control so that you’re clients aren’t met with a barrage of unnecessary emails

So enabled ‘put in queue for review’

 

 

Now follow the flow, selecting your relevant template and who do you want the email to go to - the primary contact or all contacts?

When you select ‘Choose Template’ you’ll see your newly created template from earlier and you can even preview the template selected with the preview icon. 

In this example, we’re looking at Annual Accounts and your Year End process, so I want my template to go 9 months before the statutory YE filing deadline, so I’ll enter 9 months for the next statutory deadline. 

 

Now this email template could be something like ‘great news, your accounting year has just finished, we’re looking forward to preparing your accounts and getting these filed ahead of your deadline - before we can do this, we need bank statements / WIP’ you get the picture. This could be a one off email 

That’s a great start, but we know what clients are like - they need constant reminding and badgering, so let’s set up a ‘chaser’

Now this email could be ‘we sent you a request for bank statements / WIP etc’ please uploaded your bank statements into your portal.

Now we want this to go monthly until we actually receive the records required. Select ‘repeat sending the email’ then enter your parameters, in this example, every month. 

Automations are scary

This is great, but how do we control this? How can we make sure that we’re not spamming our clients with unnecessary emails when they’ve perhaps sent us the required documents?

This is where your ‘Conditions’ come into play - it’s important to note that these ‘Conditions’ are linked to your Service Status / Phases

 

 

So if your job cards aren’t up to date, you must do a little house keeping beforehand, once you’ve got your clients imported. 

 

So in our example, the system is going to remind our clients, every month that they need to send us the required documents, until the job card status is is no longer ‘request records’ ‘awaiting records’ ‘Part records received’

This ‘job’ will stop once the status is.

 

This is quick way of getting your statutory deadline management system up and running, but you can get creative with it. You can have layer upon layer of automations running on EACH service that you have enabled in the system

 

Here’s an example of how people often set up their Year End reminders - different templates sent out at different times, based on different conditions. 

 

Remember to play with this as much as you like until you’re comfortable. 

Common Questions 

Why aren’t my emails being sent to my client?

First thing to check will be to head to your Automations across your top bar

 

 

Remember, we’re giving you control over the automations so more than likely, the emails are sitting there as ‘queued’ - waiting for you to approve them. This is a common occurrence while you get used to the system. 

When you select ‘queued’ you’ll be taken to the emails awaiting approval. From here you can ‘preview’ ‘edit’ ‘approve’ etc. Great for catching any last minute amends required. 

If you don’t want to see a specific automation to be queued, here’s how you turn it off so the job will run without interference

Back into Settings - Relevant Service - Global Auto Reminder - Set Up - Edit

 

Find the relevant Automation - Edit

Change the setting from Yes to No. You have complete control over all automations and behaviours, so spend some time getting used to the functionality

 

Why has the email failed?

9 times out of 10, it’s a simple case of an incorrect email being entered - it could be that there’s a comma at the end, or a stray character that needs to be removed form the client record - head to the Client - General Info - Email anb check

 

Then once correct, you can hit the green icon to try and send again:

 

 

 

 

Syncing your email with Engager

The most effective Engager users are in their platform on a daily basis - they’re checking deadlines, they’re setting up reminders automations, progressing jobs and tasks but they’re also using Engager as their method of communication. 

Emails in and out, all through Engager so we encourage ALL users to sync their Microsoft 365 account or Gmail to Engager. Your emails will start filtering through and it’s a 2-way connection, so anything set via Engager will appear in native email provider. 

 

Once it has all been synced you can even see an audit trail of all email / text comms sent out via Engager. To see this, locate your client in question, then on the Left Hand Side - CRM - Communication

So let’s get this set up - head to Settings - Left Hand Side - Integrations - MSoft365 / Gmail

 

 

You can link a personal inbox that only you will see and a shared inbox every user sees. To link click authorise and follow the Microsoft login process, do this a second time for the shared box. 

 

Note: you may find it best to link your personal bo4 then log out of Engager, open a private browser, login into Client Engager, then authorise the shared bo4 because Microsoft can remember you and cause some issues

 

Select which mailbox you wish to authorise, then select ‘Authorise’ to then start the process

Common Questions

If I sync my personal mailbox, will other staff members see my emails?

Absolutely NOT - these remain private

 

My Automated Reminders aren’t being sent? Can I have automations from a personal mailbox

Automations and Template emails will only ever be sent from a Shared Mailbox, not a personal mailbox